The topic for the blog rounds this week is why we continue to love the Philippines and what our reasons are for staying.

From a purely material perspective, there is very little to stay behind for. Educational opportunities are dwindling, security is tenuous, wireless internet service is spotty, the cleanliness of bottled water is suspect, gasoline will only become more expensive, there is a looming rice shortage, traffic and its twin children, pollution and waste of time is ridiculous, the beaches in Thailand are less costly, shopping in Hong Kong and Singapore is infinitely better, Haagen-Dazs is more expensive in Manila compared to Tokyo!

You leave our country and find that much of the world has left us behind. You leave our country and your desensitization to poverty and bad governance disappears, you begin asking questions once again. It does not have to be this way and this is the fundamental reason why we can’t leave our country like this.

We need to love our country and give as much as we can because of those we leave behind. We become a nation only when we recognize our responsibility to help these desperate millions of Filipinos who by the looks of it, have no chance to improve their lives.

We need to keep this love for our country burning because we are the last hope, or so must we frame it in these dramatic terms because if we give up and cede our country’s future to all these politicians who have been presenting themselves all these years, then all becomes lost.

We will be telling our children we had a country once.